Iliad

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The battle against the Tholians has been over for more than a year, and the Federation enjoys peace within its borders once more. But in an uninhabited section of Romulan space, a new threat is brewing. Mysterious ships from the Andromeda Galaxy have begun an invasion, and seem all but completely unstoppable.

But springing forth from the vaults of the secret Grey research facility on Deep Space 12 is one last miracle to help defend the Beta Quadrant and the newly-allied Romulans. Slipstream technology has the ability to enable the newest Federation starship, the USS Odyssey to traverse millions of light years in a matter of weeks. A bold mission is put together to stop the ruthless invading forces, but will it be enough to stop the vastly superior forces?

Archeina is an empire in the M31 Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years from Earth. Majan Seram attends the Grand Majan, her mother. Archeins believe the Great Ones frown on those who take by force. Sarem lies and says their artificial wormhole emerges in an entirely uninhabited area of space.

At Deep Space 12, T'Lorra reports that all attempts to close the wormhole have failed, and the Archeins have thousands of ships ready to bring through it. With Klingon help, the Romulans have restricted the invaders to two sectors. Newly-weds Ro Nevin and Corey Aster have been analysing probe data and Ro suggests exploiting recent applications of the Grey Research Facility to build a working quantum slipstream drive. This will be capable of traveling to Andromeda in a matter of weeks, but they only have enough tetrahedron material to power two or three ships. They send a cloakedIlliad probe to gather data on the Archeins.

Sarem traverses the wormhole to order Morigu to speed up his advance. Morigu urges caution.

The probe discovers Archeins have only one gateway; the allies hatch a plan to destroy it, using a "Trojan horse": tricobalt bomb disguised as a supply ship. This will be disguised using the Romulans' new, secret, holographic cloaking device. The probe will be delivered by two starships with slipstream drive. The Romulans agree to supply the required cloaking devices. Ro and Aster will supervise the slipstream drives in the Odyssey and General Korg's ship the R'kog; T'Lorra will supervise the cloaking devices. They meet Maya Stadi, the Odyssey's chief security officer on and Stephen Conner, captain T'Lek's XO, argue with T'Lorra over who is in charge of the cloak, and attend the commissioning ceremony of the Odyssey. The two ships begin their journey to Andromeda.

T'Lorra visits Dr Owen Vaughan complaining of headaches. Vaughan is familiar with Romulan biology from his residency near the Neutral Zone, and advises T'Lorra to get her ocular implant refocused as soon as they return to DS12.

When the allied ships arrive in Archein space to launch their disguised probe, their control signals are detected; the Archein's employ a tachyon sweep that disables the R'Kog's cloak, and destroy the probe before it detonates. Ro suggests a desperate plan B: the enemy power plant operates on the same hyperdimensional physics as the slipstream drive, and transporting the drive in to the plant will destroy it and the artificial wormhole. The Archein's battle cruisers batter the Odyssey, killing T'Lek and Conner and many others, leaving Ro and T'Lorra to enact the plan.

The battered R'Kog escapes back to Romulan space just before the wormhole collapses, emerging in to a fierce battle between Allied and Archein forces. It is already too damaged to salvage, and Korg gives the order to abandon ship.

Back in the Andromeda galaxy, the Odyssey is struggling to escape Seram's furious pursuit. With the chief engineer dead, ensign Joshua Gillen must try to repair the warp drive while T'Lorra attempts to get the cloak online again. In desperation they hide in a singularity-riddled anomaly which the Archein ships do not dare enter. At the last second the cloak enables them to escape.

Out of immediate danger, the surviving officers and crew take stock of their situation. Ro's immediate plan is to stay near the Archein homeworld, since they is where any Federation rescue ship will look first. In the meantime, they will have to search for supplies and attempt to continue Starfleet's mission of exploration as best they can. T'Lorra disagrees, insisting that Starfleet's ideals are irrelevant this far from Federation space, and they must be pursue a more aggressive strategy. Ro tells her privately that while he respects her greater command and battle experience, she must not challenge him in front of the other officers again. In his private log he admits he worries whether he will ever see Aster again—and whether Aster will recognize him when he does.